New Zealand Antique Prints
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Post Office Box 146
Greytown, 5742
Wairarapa
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A History of the Birds of New Zealand, 1st edition

Walter Lawry Buller, Sc.D., Walter Lawry Buller, Sc.D.

London: John Van Voorst, 1 Paternoster Row. 1873.

With frontispiece and 35 hand-coloured plates of birds by John G. Keulemans. Complete with the list of subscribers.

Only 500 copies were issued and sold by private subscription. The lithographic stones were then destroyed.

The drawings by Keulemans contain almost 70 figures of New Zealand birds. The highly valuable first edition plates were hand coloured by Dr. R. Bowdler Sharpe's three daughters, Misses Dora Louise, Daisy Madeliner, and Sylvia Rosamund, with some copied from G.Edwards.

Condition: overall good, a page of text detached, frontispiece water stained and some slight staining to tissue guards, otherwise plates quite clean.
Leather
pp. 384
Size: 25.5cm x 33cm (approximately)

Price: POA

(Local sales tax may apply)
Please enquire:  narena@nzbirds.com

A History of the Birds of New Zealand, second edition

Walter Lawry Buller, Sc.D.

London: Published (for the sbuscribers) by The Author, 8 Victoria Chambers, Victoria Street, Westminster, S.W. 1888. Printed by Taylor and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street.

The second edition was published in 13 parts between July 1887 and December 1888, the first 12 comprising text and 4 plates, the final part text only.

Two volumes, imperial quarto. (14 3/8 x 10 3/4 inches). 9pp. subscribers list. 48 chromolithographic plates by and after John Gerrard Keulemans (assisted by F. van Iterson), 2 uncoloured lithographic plates by E.Wilson after P.J. Smit, all printed by Judd & Co. Vol.1: 250p, 24 colour chromolithographic plates by Keulemans. Vol.2: 359p, 26 plates (24 colour by Keulemans).

Although 1,000 sets of the 1888 edition were produced, a total of 251 copies were lost in the wrecks of the Matai and the Assaye in 1890 (Galbreath p.172).

The plates of the second edition show Keulemans at his best and are superb examples of chromolithography. "The book itself is on a larger scale [than the first edition], being Imperial instead of Royal quarto, and the plates, instead of being handcoloured lithographs, have been produced by the more costly but more exact and satisfactory process of printing in colours ..." (Preface).

Condition: one plate loose, partly detached from spine at back of volume. Signature of subscriber on fly leaf, occasional spot of foxing on end pages but generally a good clean set of the second edition.
Two volumes imperial quarto.
vol. 1, pp.250, vol. 2, pp. 359.
Size: 29.5cm x 38cm.

Price: POA

(Local sales tax may apply)
Please enquire:  narena@nzbirds.com